The equity investment will be used to continue developing the fintech company in South America’s second-largest economy, according to founder and CEO Pierpaolo Barbieri. The venture is one of Tencent’s few in Latin America, after it announced a $90m investment in Brazil’s Nubank last October.

The move comes as Argentina transits a recession and soaring inflation following a currency crisis in 2018. Foreign direct investment has dropped amid investor jitters as the country heads into a presidential election in October.

“Tencent invests because it’s betting on what will happen in Argentina over the next 10 years, rather than what will happen in the next six months,” Barbieri said in a phone interview from Buenos Aires. Barbieri declined to disclose the amount of the investment.

Uala has issued more than 500,000 prepaid cards from October 2017 to December 2018, as part of a bet on long-term growth in a country in which less than half the population has a bank account. The company is launching an app redesign Wednesday and looks to begin lending through its mobile app in 2019.